Arts Integration Class - A Success!!

On October 28th and 29th, I presented a workshop at the University of North Florida which focused on music methods for the non-musician. The students I taught are studying to be elementary school teachers and must incorporate the Arts in their classroom instruction. A few of these students had private music lessons as young children, but the majority of them were non-musicians. I was asked to provide them with songs and musical activities that would inspire children and engage the learner in a musical way.

I hauled instruments for them to play, I took my guitar and armed myself with lots of simple, singable songs that anyone can teach. We practiced vocal inflection with a slide whistle, we enhanced a book entitled "Froggy Learns to Swim" with rhythm instruments, we acted out the "Butterfly Cycle Song," we learned to play an ostinato on the drums while singing a Nigerian song, we compared a note tree to a pizza (lesson comparing note values and fractions) - we crammed as much as we could into two hours and forty-five minutes of class time. Curriculum integration was the key and a fun time was had by all!!

 
 
 
 

 
 

Until next time...